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Posted by Jun on 1st Jul 2012

doesn't equal causation. Drug users didn't cause the irertunban (which brought shoppers from all over the lower mainland) to shut down, the newspaper industry that centred around Victory Square for decades to relocate (when Pacific Press moved to Granville), or City of Vancouver planners to put through policies and zoning changes designed to consolidate the downtown shopping district around Granville & Robson (while the East End was supposed to be re-oriented as parking lots, freeways, industrial, and social housing projects). Moreover, the development of other neighbourhoods such as Coal Harbour & Yaletown pushed the poor/street people from those places to the DTES. Of course after all this happened remaining businesses struggled & often folded. The drug trade took over only because there was a big economic vacuum left to fill because of the massive disinvestment from the neighbourhood, which was a decades long process that began in the 50s and culminated with the closure of Woodward's in 1993. Skid Road in the 1950s & 1960s connoted alcoholics more so than drug users, and yes, that zone was north of Hastings. But drug users always had a presence on Hastings even when it was a thriving shopping district. Cafes like the Blue Eagle and the White Lunch were notorious drug user hangouts and places for drug transactions going back to well before the 1960s, and there were many more, even as shoppers flocked to Hastings for a bargain and to catch a show. Not to mention The Corner at Hastings & Columbia that was known across the country as the epicentre of Canada's illicit drug scene, at least as far back as the early 1950s. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s when the police & City Hall shut down many of the drug user haunts that the drug trade went out into the streets and alleys and in your face. But for decades before that, the drug trade and the legitimate commercial economy co-existed on Hastings Street because the drug trade operated discreetly and didn't interfere with legit commerce. You can read more